Monday, July 21, 2014

Perspective adjustment.

          I have been overweight my whole life. Seriously. I was born 13 pounds 12 oz and it just went up from there, so I have been trying to drop some of my weight for a long long time. Since High school there has been a lot of working on exercise more, or eating better working to just drop the excess. A lot of that had to do with timetables, and calculations. If I can keep a steady pace of loosing X pounds a week for X weeks I will hit my goal at such and such a time in the future. This often turned into weird math where I would figure at a constant rate of change, by such and such a date I should be at X weight which would coincide with a particular holiday or festival or something.

Therein lied the problem. Any rate, no matter how much we want it to be stays the same. This week may be a drop of 5 pounds, next week 1. Over time it is easy to start out ahead, then when the curve hits and I am now 5 pounds behind my goal rate, it is easy to get frustrated, discouraged, and "take a break". Unfortunately the breaks last longer than I wanted, so 2 days becomes 3 then a week. Next thing I know, clothes are fitting tighter and I am upset because I let myself slide.

This week everything changed for me. All it took was a new perspective. What if, it was not about a timetable, what if it was about making healthy choices. What did it matter if I reached my goal in 52 weeks or 104 if I got there? What if I gave myself enough room for it all to be OK, as long as I was working on it with some diligence? The answer I found was that all of it was OK. For years, when I was on it, I pushed hard, VERY hard. Instead of walking a mile a day to get started I pushed it to 5 a day. Instead of slowing down what I was eating, I dropped off a lot, really really quick. What it meant was that I got burned out quickly.

This week it became OK to be where I was, and to be working where I was to get where I wanted to be. Do I have to loose 10 pounds in 2 weeks? No, especially if it does not stay off.  Is it OK if I keep on it, loose nothing this week, stay on my plan, next week only loose 1 but am staying consistent on exercise and eating right? You betcha. The key is the long game. Not what can I loose this week, but where is the overall trend? Not what can I lift today, but am I working towards my goals to my own satisfaction? Can I push harder? Yes, Am I likely to get warn out? You betcha. The key is little steps for an end game, not huge ones now, only to back track, and fall further behind.

I have been at my current weight before. 5 years ago, on my 28th birthday, I weighed what I thought was a lot. In truth, it was 5 pounds under where I am now. For years, I had a picture of me from my 28th birthday, on things to motivate me into a perspective of "never again". In September of last year, I was up to 30 pounds over that "Never Again weight". This time it is different.

Since June I am down almost 15 pounds. Using my FitBit  I started with a goal of 10,000 steps a day which turned into 12,000 then 14,300, then 15,000 really quickly. I am finding that it is harder to hit 15 consistently, so instead of just calling it a day, I am working to hit it when I am behind. It is not every day, but a few times a week. What dictates it is how much I get at work, or on the way home. Instead of saying hey, I hit it 3 times last week lets move the bar, I am looking at saying lets hit the bar a few weeks in a row, then move it up. Again, consistent will get me there a lot better than pushing hard, getting burned out, falling backwards, then trying again in a few weeks or months.

The big takeaway here is that the adjustment, the one thing that changed in the last week is the need to be X by X. In the past a lot of my goals were set around the calendar. If by Christmas I am X then I get such and such for Christmas. If I am such and such by the state fair, then I get a new belt. Instead of: This year, at the fair I am buying a new belt from the good belt guy at the fair. Instead of: By August X I will have lost X weight so will get new work pants, it becomes When I can't cinch my pants anymore and need new ones, I will get new ones. What it means is the rewards can be bigger but they are not tied to a particular week, or month but instead, when I hit it, I do, and at that point I get such and such reward. if it is in 3 weeks, awesome, if it is in 3 months, that is OK too. What matters is keeping with it, not turning back before I reach the goal, and knowing that it is OK to go slow, if it means reaching it instead of running hard, and then not having anything left to keep up the long game.  What matters is the destination, not how quickly I get there.

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Giving up or not.

When is it time to throw in the towel and call it, and when do you continue despite the setbacks and hardships?
This has been on my mind a lot as of late. There are 2 kinds of hanging on as I see it. The first is hanging on to things for longer than they are useful because it is easier than letting go, free falling into the unknown and risking the chance of failing. The other is giving up when the going gets tough because it may not be worth the trials for the pay off. This weekend may have changed my perspective some on which is which and what the coping mechanism is. 

In the last over a month I have been working on exercising, and loosing the dreaded huge amount of fat that I want to loose. I have been successful, though perhaps moderately. This is nothing new. It is a familiar cycle I find myself in, Work hard, see progress, take a "break", back slide, get mad because it did not work. It is hardly something new. Sometimes it is easier to give up, than to keep going. Sometimes the answer is that it is just not right, and so forcing things is harder than letting them go and walking away. Sometimes giving up is the right thing to do. 

 We don't like that idea though. Countless times in the past I have heard speeches from people who wish to inspire basically saying "Congratulations for making it this far, not many people do, so you must be something special." I have always wondered, is this true, or is it a way of motivating people to think that they are the best and no one else can do what they are doing. I have heard it at workplaces, and about dojo's and parts of the military. You are the best, and have the most dedication. You are more dedicated and discipline than anyone else.  (Thus you are better, we are left to assume) 

Yesterday, I heard it in a meeting but it was different. Basically it went like this: "Things are not going to get easier, they will likely get harder." (implication that if now was too much later would be worse) "You have to ask yourself if it is worth it to stay and deal with that, or is it time to go somewhere else." After the meeting I took a good long walk. (would have made it the 6 miles home had my wife not picked me up) I have found that just walking, even if it is in 100 degree heat helps me sort my thoughts. So yesterday I wondered when is it right to stay with it, fight with it, realizing it is only going to get harder, and when is it OK to throw in the towel and walk away. 

I have had plenty of times in the past when I choose the second option. Things got real, there was no way I would win, so I walked away. Jobs, Relationships, hobbies, what started out fun for it's own sake turned to frustration at the way in which it was going, and so I walked away. Sometimes it was not a full walk away, but walking away from a task or a part of something. When I got frustrated with not being able to meet the physical requirements for my sword rank advancements, I essentially said, "There is no way I will be in the shape required so I can pass them, so I will stop trying to advance in class rank." 

Walking away was always on the table. Get written up for something at work, which means years of hard work meaning little since the write up was now in my file? Walk away, the job was not worth it and I could find something else. Walking away can be healthy, though we do not talk that way. In sword if someone starts then leaves, it is something against them, not, maybe it is not their thing. All the while patting ourselves on the back for being the "Survivors" or "More Hardcore". We are the people who feel that we are the best, and only if you walk our way can you be the best. Frankly it is bull. 

I have walked away from a lot of things. Sometimes I wrote it off as taking a break, but it was walking away. There is nothing wrong with it. What is wrong is the idea that if you do not do ABC then you are not as cool or great as we are, but that feels like a part of the human condition we have to overcome.

On Sunday I went on a hike. It was a warm day and the trail was rocky. Walking into it I thought it was going to be a quick easy hike up to a pretty lake, then a beer and lunch then back down. After 2 hours on the trail. the 3.25 miles felt like it was forever. When we got, there it was one of the most beautiful lakes I remember seeing, added to that is was that it felt like it was so hard that it added to the beauty. When I was half way down, I was ready to quit, but funny thing about it, at that point I had no choice but to keep going.

I could have quit any time. I could have walked up taken a look at the inclines and simply given up. That was an option. There would have been nothing wrong with that. I would have missed out at the top, but I did not know the pay off, so would not have known any better.

But I think that is the point. Someone once told me that you had to decide what it was that you wanted and say no to everything that may get in the way of that. In the past, I have said no to a lot of things when I was "Taking a break".

I am done with that crap. It's OK to give up, it is not OK to give up and complain about it. It is OK to say no, or not today, but it is not OK to say no, then complain about not getting to see the lake. What matters most of all is to ask "is this where I want to go, is this part of something I truly desire?" and if it is not walk away, and be OK with walking away so you can get the things you need. It is not easy, but it is OK. If I had not walked away from one job to another years ago, I would not have met the people I did, or learned what I did. It's OK to walk away, just do not complain when others see the lake and you don't get to.